#retrogamegeeks

TRANSBOT!

AKA Astro Flash AKA Nuclear Creature AKA lmao what’s this game why’s it called that why’s it on a little credit card

I feel like besides me there are maybe 8 people in the world that give a shit about this silly old SMS game. Turns out at least one of those people is the super talented Kristian Hawkinson. Dude only went and made a fucking stellar HD remake of the game! What an absolute champion!

The original game is a fairly simplistic horizontally scrolling highscore shooter that I happen to find weirdly fascinating. The remake is still that, but well pretty and with remastered* music. You shoot enemy blobbies (all with goofy names) until you get enough keys to do it again inside a base, kill a boss and then do it again. It’s all so very basic, but routinely turns what was supposed to be 10 minutes into well over an hour, for me at least. The redone background graphics are mesmerizing. I feel like I’m playing some kind of synthwavey music video.

I found out about this completely by chance and I’m so glad I did! I fully and entirely recommend it for anyone who thinks video games are good. It’s free and there’s a download link on the RGG website. Go get it and play it already, you dummy! Tell your friends too, it’s really cool

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a...NEW YEAR!? AND A FRIDAY!? Well, that can only mean one thing...

It's FRANCHISE FRIDAY and it's time for a big hitter, coz up steps Solid Snake & Co. for Hideo Kojima's METAL GEAR! With the release of a little game by one Hideo Kojima for the MSX2 platform back in '87 known simply as Metal Gear, little did Konami know that such a beast would be unleashed. A video game series acclaimed for it's cinematic-tinged action-adventure stealth-style swagger, it gave birth to a gaming icon in Solid Snake and in its wake pioneered the stealth genre of gaming, which has since grown into a popular form of its own lending inspiration to the likes of Splinter Cell, etc. The Metal Gear franchise is as huge as its intricate and on-going story...

Snake first snuck into peoples homes with the original Metal Gear on MSX2, but it was its watered down NES port (and unofficial sequel to said port) that let the rest of the world into the MG universe. Yet, it wasn't until 1998 that the ball really got rolling, with the release of Metal Gear Solid on the Sony PlayStation, which quickly became one of the most commercial and critically successful video games of the era and an absolute swoop for Sony's 32-bit console in terms of exclusivity. It is of course the Solid subseries that has gained the more widespread fanbase due to the easier access (in terms of general retail availability); with the numbered versions until the fifth entry continuing on as PlayStation brand exclusives with MGS2: Sons of Liberty and MGS3: Snake Eater on PS2.

Of course - as with every big franchise - Metal Gear also went portable, not just with the mobile phone ports of the original. The Game Boy Color received it's own Metal Gear Solid, known as Ghost Babel in Japan, which served as an alternate sequel to the OG Metal Gear. The PSP gained the MGS3 follow-up known as Portable Ops and eventually in 2010 a sequel came in the form of Peace Walker and also Metal Gear AC!D 1&2. The ill-fated N-Gage even got a look-in with Metal Gear Solid Mobile. 

Almost every game in the franchise has also had some form of 'expanded version', remake or re-release...It's like Kojima and Konami just can't help themselves on that front. The PS3 also saw MGS4 and for the new consoles MGS5 is on the horizon, following its prologue game. There has also been radio drama adaptations, novels, comics, a whole host of CD's (from OST's and more), a crap tonne of figures, etc. and of course a film adaptation that has been in developmental hell since 2006. Nobody is a true fortune teller, but we at RGG predict that the legend of Solid Snake will only continue to grow, as the Metal Gear franchise at large grows with it. The future of Kojima's series is as bright now as ever. No matter your opinions, retrobates - one really must doth their cap to the legacy of, as the intro put; a true big hitter. Yet, that said...What are your opinions on the franchise? Love it, hate it, m'eh it? Perhaps you'd just rather watch Escape From New York or whack in one of Metal Gear's stealth rivals such as the aforementioned Splinter Cell? Get up on it and DISCUSS this weeks FRANCHISE FRIDAY via our FORUM  and/or our other Social Media platforms:

TWITTER / FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM / GOOGLE+ 

-Olly023 RetroGameGeeks X

Let's see out 2014 with a bang, with the FINAL Who Wins Wednesday of the old year and the (sort of, technically) first of the new... IT'S WHO WINS WEDNESDAY?

NEO GEO POCKET COLOR Vs. WONDERSWAN COLOR

The battle of the post-GBC, pre-GBA other handhelds for 2014's FINAL BATTLE...This is WHO WINS WEDNESDAY?

What happens when SNK, the arcade gold standard; squeeze all their awesomeness into a tiny bundle? Well, retrobates - that wouldn't be the shoddy emulation device with a steep price - oh hell naw; we're on about the wonderful Neo Geo Pocket Color!!

And speaking of wonderful...Gunpei had to do something post-Nintendo, so why not design a nifty portable for Bandai? Which, of course, he did. Thus the Wonderswan Color came to be! Both consoles had original B&W versions and multiple variants, the 'Swan also having a Crystal version, too. Each very unique game librarys, both small and sassy all the same. Neither toppled the mighty Game Boy brand, nor did they even topple the Game Gear's prior success. But what they did do, was carve a place into the beating hearts of retrogamers far and wide! ...WHO WINS!?

With the #20YearsOfPlay celebrations strong into its second week, we here at RetroGameGeeks decided to dig around for a popular property of Sony's in the form of one particular series...

It's FRANCHISE FRIDAY with those lil green haired guys everybody loves; it's of course: LEMMINGS! What began as a simplistic gem that became an Amiga must own (yeah, sure, there were other home computer versions but we all know who's KING) that not only went on to be ported to most systems under the sun at one point or other (talking classic consoles here: Master System, NES, SNES, MegaDrive/Genesis, Game Gear and Game Boy and even the likes of the CD-i) and even had remakes of sorts all shiny and whatnot thanks to its current parent company that saw the light through the PSP and PS2. Oh and by the way? Yes, that's the same DMA that are now Rockstar, makers of Grand Theft Auto...

Of course, as with many wildly popular games of the 1990's, sequels and expansions (more or less) were obviously imminent. For the latter we saw the likes of Oh, No More Lemmings!, theXmas/Holiday Lemmings themed sub-series et al. The former gave us the excellent Lemmings 2: The Tribes and the slightly modified engine sequel that was All New World of Lemmings (which ended up being DMA's last and the final of the main story arc). 

Other spin-offs beckoned and very shortly after the DMA years beginning with 3D Lemmings, which as you may guess if not knowing; sent the little tykes into a three dimensional world. It sucked, unfortunately. Come 2000 they attempted to rectify it with a crispy title known to the world as Lemmings Revolution, which is neither here nor there, if asking me. The more interesting spin-offs would be the likes of Lemmings Paintball and the PlayStation exclusive Adventures of Lomax (which is essentially a reskinned, repurposed and enhanced version of Flink). The Lemmings have been pretty quiet for the most part the past decade besides the couple of remakes previously mentioned. But that hasn't stopped the franchise's popularity/importance being recognised as you can even go visit some awesome statues in Dundee that honour the game.

What do you think about Lemmings being chosen for this edition of Franchise Friday? What's your favourite game in the series? Do you love or hate, maybe just m'eh Lemmings?! Sound off below coz much like on Wednesdays, we gotz to know!!  Get up on it and DISCUSS this weeks FRANCHISE FRIDAY on the Forum, Twitter or Instagram! A few positive notes here on Tumblr of course wouldn't go a miss either! <3

YouTube has obviously become a playground for the gamers-en-mass...But if you want some cool and unique retro based content, don't worry: RGG has you covered! All viewable from the man site, so no need to hop around the interwebz, folks! Check it out...

Champion Gamer 5NATCH (Reviews/Let's Try!) [AUS]

SEGA Galactico (VS./Death Match) [USA]

Mollett Games (Multiplayer Mayhem) [UK]

Sarah Sharkbait (Reviews) [UK]

AND INTRODUCING...

Slopes Games Room [UK]

Let's Play! Arcade [USA]

So go and get ll up on it, retrobates! There's a whole host of audio/visual awesomeness for you to waggle your joystick at. You know you want to...SO DO IT! NNNNNOW!

Don't forget to LIKE, COMMENT & SUBSCRIBE on their individual channels via YouTube, accessible via linkage on the videos themselves if watching through the website.

Much love as always,

Howdy all, Olly023 of RGG here!

Just a quick note of sorry sorriness, for not properly updating this hurr Tumblr. Was meant as my baby and I done did a fail. Alas! Don't call it a come back, but following this post there'll be a few quick catch-ups so you're all up to speed here in the tumblrverse and then the blog shall be updated on a weekly basis and actually kept up this time. Boom!

Let's not forget though, you can connect with RGG at other social media destinations, too! Links-a-followin':

Twitter 

Facebook

Instagram

Google+

Yay! Of course, besides Social Media you can talk to the Team by signing up on the FORUM via the main site at RetroGameGeeks.co.uk